Artist

An Artist’s Room

Literary Nonsense

I forgot my hat, the cat on the mat didn’t forget anything, but I did, somehow, somewhere, my hat.

A summer fresh rhyme, time for the flowers to blush and soak in the summer fresh rhyme, flower, them I looked at with love, picked and plucked, and placed neatly on my hat that then looked summer fresh.

Our colours matched, summer fresh orange and violet, my hat and tiny bead-like flowers as if beaded in a chain, the summer fresh evening sky, seen from my room’s window.

My room, my small room, an artist’s room. A dream for some. Back then? No, even now!

A chair and a table and good space to work and rest and look at the summer fresh evening sky and rolling gushy whispery light clouds through the window.

And the neighbouring spaces, floating yet firm terraces, all cheerful, soaking in the summer fresh colour and air.

In the room, small room, I roam and wave my hat, let it dance and then rest on the chair, I spoke through it and it spoke on my behalf, my hat, with all that appeared static but wasn’t.

The hat carried and passed my restless ideas to nowhere and no one; the calm space let the restless idea be, which when rested, breathed its last and vanished. The artist’s room continued breathing and then so did the artist, and every time later, even after losing her hat.

The cat sitting on the mat, the neighbour’s cat, this one, a peace-loving warrior, jumped up when the artist opened the door, climbed to the window, its tail waving a slow cheerio at the artist before sauntering out on the roof top.

Back in the room, hat still missing, the artist sat down to work, breathing in the room’s calmness inside, forgetting about the matters that followed her till the room’s door shut.

One glance around, the hat’s not in the room, the artist sighs, gets up, walks towards the window, finds that cat on a different terrace, sitting still like a statue, aware about the artist’s glance, itself looking downwards at a passer-by – a dog, notices the artist too and turns looking up at the summer fresh sky and then goes back to work.

A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris by Gwen John (1876 – 1939) inspired the blogger.

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A Stone Statue

Posted on September 1, 2024 by Jagriti Rumi Artist Beating Heart Dancing Hymns Idol Observation Statue Stone Time Un-measure Worship

Observation

**Life in meditation!**
[Source – Pixabay]

Stone like still and steady… so that quietness comes naturally to me, in me the artist lives and so does all the eyes that fall on me… in reverence, pain, hatred, fear, love and joy alike.

Stone like calm and composed… so that patience comes naturally to me, in me the atoms dance a difference dance, such as the dance of the time… in tune always… out-of-tune only for the dying.

When an idol, I am worshipped, when a stone, I worship it all… the flowery and fragrant air, the bright wet vermilion, the soft sandalwood, the bells, the dancing feet on dancing hymns, the passersby, the glares, the sheen, the prayers, the daily life’s hurried tales.

Absorbing the voices and noise and music and reverberations alike, I continue to un-measure the measured and this is what attracts the weary souls, I know, to meet the unmoving stone.

Stone like wise and kind… the statue lives unwaveringly, beaming and alive, with a beating heart like yours and mine.

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Vermeer’s Room

Posted on July 30, 2023 by Jagriti Rumi 17th Century Art Artist Colour Globe Japanese Kimono Painting Picture Within A Picture Pigments Room Sign The Astronomer The Geographer Vermeer Window

Short Commentary

*The Geographer* by Vermeer.
[Source – Wikipedia]

The Geographer and the Astronomer were in the same room as Vermeer for it is in the front room, on the second floor of a spacious house, Vermeer’s mother-in-law’s house, that he produced most of his work.

One good room and in this one good room, a window (usually on the left), a table, chair, cupboard, stool, curtains, draperies, tapestries and a picture-within-a-picture maintained a position, steady, jolly, known, homely, oozing warmth that allowed the artist to mix the pigments well.

And in these two paintings, the two silent globes – a celestial globe with its terrestrial pair for in the 17^th century globes were sold in pairs as a direct, neat, calculable link between astronomy and geography was thoroughly entertained – appear in full support of the two sharp owners, a trust built on daily encounters in the same room.

*The Astr*onomer by Vermeer.
[Source – Wikipedia]

The Japonsche rocken/ Japanese kimono worn by the two scholars here add to the room’s mood and colour; more like precious gifts for a selected few – back then these were not for sale, but presented in batches only to the merchants who were allowed to visit the Imperial Court in Edo (Tokyo) – the robes then feature seriousness, persistence and also recognition.

Many feel that the Geographer and the Astronomer are the same person with some guessing him to be modelled after the Dutch scientist, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who probably knew Vermeer.

The ultramarine, cyan shade that colours the two robes, derived from natural lapis lazuli, very expensive, deep, quietly presents the two scientists caught wondering, imagining, getting inspired by a source.

**The only supposed portrait of *Jan Vermeer van Delft*.**
**[Source – Wikipedia]**

And the artist painstakingly fine-tunes the details, adds layers, swirls and golden dots, folds, peaks and dips, floral touches, tiny tiles and shadowy walls, and signs the painting, sometimes signs it twice.

And the room, sitting patiently absorbing in light and darkness, also signs.

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Enlightenment Pocketed

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Jagriti Rumi Art Artist Book Calm Mind Heart Meditation Monk Paintings Poems

**Lotus *Koan*.**
**Image by Marek Studzinski from Pixabay.**

“The enjoyment of art is an act of recreation, or rather of creation in the reverse direction, towards the source of intuition, i.e., an act of absorption, in which we lose our small self in the creative experience of a greater universe.”
Anagarika B. Govinda

I happen to have a small sweet book titled Art & Meditation (actually a few years back I took it from my brother), written by Lama Anagarika B. Govinda – an artist, a Buddhist monk, traveller and writer.

Sharing his paintings, poems and thoughts with us, he talks about the ineffaceable, elusive yet real, sublimely beautiful link between art and meditation; how true art merges with true religion and vice-versa.

It is not digressive or sluggishly cumbersome, this thought, rather it is stimulating for the one who is not in a hurry.

The author wishes his essays and artwork to serve as koans i.e. ‘meditative problems’ for his readers that churn our thoughts and act as an impetus for continuing the search.

I have gone through this insightful book twice now. What struck me this time was its size, how come Lama Anagarika Govinda’s lectures on art and meditation along with his artwork were capsuled in such a tiny book?

Of course, there must be other collections of his essays and pictures, surely in not-so-tiny a book.

But here I would intentionally turn this coincidence into a grand undertaking and happily say something ambitious.

This beautiful book holds, yes-yes it does, the secret to enlightenment and simply because of its humble, calm and forgiving nature, affordable price, elucidations of the artwork and colour schemes given and the profound ideas shared.

With these balmy thoughts, I will read this book again in the near future for then it will reveal a new secret to me.

Leaving you with an edifying thought –

“Art in itself is a sort of a paradox, a Koan in the deepest sense of the word, and that is why the followers of Zen prefer it to all other mediums of expression. For only the paradox escapes the dilemma of logical limitation, of partiality and one-sidedness. It cannot be bound down to principles or conceptual definitions, because it exaggerates or abstracts intentionally in such a way that it is impossible to take it literally: its meaning is beyond the incongruity of the words.”
Anagarika B. Govinda